Intelligent Design Creationism
Now, sure there are those who will apply ID to a Christian perspective but neo-Darwinism is applied to an atheist perspective:
“It is a fact that God is continuously being publicly discussed by very well-known scientists- just read Gould, Dawkins, Hull, Provine, Wilson, Simpson, Futyama, Sagan, Hawking, and others. From a nineteenth century perspective, books like The Blind Watchmaker (Dawkins, 1986) and Wonderful Life (Gould, 1989) are simply Bridgewater treatises such as Paley, Owens, and Roget wrote, works in which up-to-date science is used for the task of world-view apologetics.”
In context:
Richard Dawkins The Blind Watchmaker, p 6, W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 1987
Paley knew that it needed a special explanation; Darwin knew it, and I suspect that in his heart of hearts my philosopher companion knew it too. In any case it will be my business to show it here. As for David Hume himself, it is sometimes said that that great Scottish philosopher disposed of the Argument from Design a century before Darwin. But what Hume did was criticize the logic of using apparent design in nature as positive evidence for the existence of a God. He did not offer any alternative explanation for apparent design, but left the question open. An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: 'I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one.' I can't help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. like to think that Hume would agree, but some of his writings suggest that he underestimated the complexity and beauty of biological design. The boy naturalist Charles Darwin could have shown him a thing or two about that, but Hume had been dead 40 years when Darwin enrolled in Hume's university of Edinburgh.
And Stephen Jay Gould’s greatest hits:
Track 1 "Biology took away our status as paragons created in the image of God. . . ."
Track 2 "Before Darwin, we thought that a benevolent God had created us."
Track 3 "Why do humans exist? . . . I do not think that any 'higher' answer can be given. . . . We are the offspring of history, and must establish our own paths in this most diverse and interesting of conceivable universes-one indifferent to our suffering, and therefore offering us maximal freedom to thrive, or to fail, in our own chosen way."
Track 4
It comes down to:,
Intelligent Design vs. stupid design
And for those who say ID is a political movement, I submit:
Let’s not forget the problems with textbooks.
…and beware of those who debate using Evolutionary Logic.
For all intents and purposes, ID is creationism. Just follow the above questions to their logical conclusions.
I was visiting in a hospital this noon, on the 5th floor looking down on the roof of an adjoining building. Looking at the array of conduits and ventelation ducts, I thought, if this building were "alive" rather than designed, those pipes wouldn't be laid out in straight lines with right-angle bends. They'd be strewn all over the place, wherever they'd fit. And they'd be more efficient.
This argument is my favorite. "Intelligent design is different from creationism because to believe otherwise is just no fair."
And Intelligent Design is focused on defending essentially nothing, which is entirely it's point. ID serves as a "big tent" for the creationism/antievolution movement in which differences can be glossed over. The article here engages in its own abuse of terminology, btw. "Creationism" is not limited to "a literal reading of the Genesis account." Strictly speaking, "creationism" refers to any view that includes an affirmation of the doctrine of creation, and this would include theistic evolution. Conventionally, however, it is often restricted in its denotation to antievolutionary versions of creationism, but this still encompasses a staggeringly broad, and often mutually contradictory, range of views.
At the extreme conservative end you would have the hyperliteralism of the flat earth cosmology. Slightly more liberal are the (tychonian) geocentrists. Then there are the young earth creationists (the Henry Morris ICR types). There are also the gap theorists, who hold that the earth is ancient, but that the flood and the present creation is recent (there was also a seperate "pre-Adamic" organic creation). More liberal still are progressive creationists. Some of them vociferously oppose evolution. Others come close to theistic evolution. Then you have theistic evolutionists who reserve special creation for the human form, and then those that reserve it for the human soul, and so on.
In short some of these views contradict each other as drastically than they do conventional evolutionary views. ID is effectively a kind of non-version of creationism. It simply claims that "some things are designed" by "intelligence," while purposely avoiding any contention (or even examination) as to how this "design" was actually effected, when it was effected, if it is still being effected, and so on.
Which is universally and correctly denounced as a non-scientific application by all evolutionist freepers so far as I can tell (even those who are themselves atheists).
Increasingly, Evolutionists do not support defend their "theory" in the manner of traditional science, they trash their opponents -- anyone who raises legitimate and rational questions about Darwinism. This is unthinking mob behavior. The point is deflect criticism by the use of sophistry. It is not honest. If scientific truth has become a synonym for integrity, then the Evolutionists' tactics have nothing to do with science.
A prime example of this is LabelThink. Certain Evolutionists will always categorize opposition to Darwinism, however thoughtful, rational and fact-filled, as "Creationism". If tolerated, this tactic allows the avoidance of any debate on the merits. It is inherently dishonest. It is Clintonian. And it has a distinct anti-Christian odor. Those who employ this tactic are essentially, by their behavior, fanatics, who will, with their "fellow travellers", call you names and shout you down. They will call you "liar". This ugly behavior is typically masked by attempts at clever humor, which is to convince you that they are more erudite and more knowledgeable than the author of the posted article, and certainly more "with it" than those Christian "freakazoids". These posts deserve your disdain. They embody a certain patent nastiness that has nothing to do with any search for truth. Note well that these are also the methods of the Left; i.e. to terminate intelligent debate by shouting down and ridiculing dissenters. These methods are practiced by pretenders, by intellectual thugs, wherein arrogant mischaracterization attempts to supplant subtle truth.
You decide.
John G. West, Jr. Research News and Opportunities in Science and Theology January 9, 2003
Science and Theology? The guy gives away the game before he even starts to make his argument.
1. "Intelligent Design Creationism" is a pejorative term coined by some Darwinists to attack intelligent design; it is not a neutral label of the intelligent design movement.2. Unlike creationism, intelligent design is based on science, not sacred texts.
3. Creationists know that intelligent design theory is not creationism.
4. Like Darwinism, design theory may have implications for religion, but these implications are distinct from its scientific program.
5. Fair-minded critics recognize the difference between intelligent design and creationism.
Mike Dunford's post at talk.origins, which became December 2002's Post of the Month, implicitly refutes all these claims:
Subject: Re: A Definitive explanation of why secularists are wrong about Int... Newsgroups: talk.origins Date: December 5, 2002 Message-ID: Xns92DA9345A17C2mikedunford@66.75.162.196
jillarontown@webtv.net wrote in news:10356-3DEE412C-3@storefull-2297.public.lawson.webtv.net:[snip]
> It seems to me that this tactic of not drawing the inference
> knowingly leads them to a conclusion of nothing new to say
> (about the designer). Did they make a disclaimer about this? If
> not, I think it's trickery too.
To my knowledge, they have not made any statements detailing why they believe their "theory" can say nothing about the nature of the designer. In general, their tactic has been to make that assertion loudly and frequently, and hope that it goes unquestioned.
Here's one example:
Within biology, intelligent design holds that a designing intelligence is indispensable for explaining the specified complexity of living systems. Nevertheless, taken strictly as a scientific theory, intelligent design refuses to speculate about the nature of this designing intelligence. Whereas optimal design demands a perfectionistic, anal-retentive designer who has to get everything just right, intelligent design fits our ordinary experience of design, which is always conditioned by the needs of a situation and therefore always falls short of some idealized global optimum. (Dembski, 2000)
Notice that while Dembski states that "intelligent design refuses to speculate about the nature of this designing intelligence", he provides no reason, no justification for this refusal. In every other science where we identify design, such "speculation" is a major, massive part of the effort. Scientists do not, for example, refuse to speculate about the nature of the "designer" when they find the ancient, well dressed remains of a dead girl preserved in an archaeological site high up an Andes Mountain. Instead, they "speculate" that she was probably sacrificed to the mountain gods of the Incan culture. (for more information on this, see http://www.mountain.org/reinhard/docs/academic/newsart.htm). If the designer that Dembski and others claim to see in biology is truly unknown, why shouldn't we use the very evidence (they claim) leads us to conclude that a designer is the cause to make conclusions regarding the nature of this "designer"? Dembski's answer is somewhat revealing.
Dembski continues:
The success of the suboptimality objection comes not from science at all, but from shifting the terms of the discussion from science to theology. In place of How specifically can an existing structure be improved? the question instead becomes What sort of God would create a structure like that?...The problem of suboptimal design is thus transformed into the problem of evil.... Critics who invoke the problem of evil against design have left science behind and entered the waters of philosophy and theology. A torture chamber replete with implements of torture is designed, and the evil of its designer does nothing to undercut the torture chamber's design. The existence of design is distinct from the morality, aesthetics, goodness, optimality, or perfection of design. Moreover, there are reliable indicators of design that work irrespective of whether design includes these additional features (cf. my previous posts to META).
Notice Dembski's tactic here. The problem of evil, he now claims, is a theological one, not a scientific one. But how does he know this? Dembski is one of the people in the ID movement who has been most vocal about claiming that "space aliens" could have been the designer, and that they are not making any assumptions about the designer (see, for example, Hall, 2002). If he is sincere about that, why would he call the question one of "philosophy or theology"? In principle, shouldn't we proceed from the identification of design in biology just as was done with the identification of design at the Incan sacrifice site I referred to above?
There is something that I should make explicitly clear at this point. Dembski's argument in the article I am quoting from is directed toward those who claim that the fact that the "design" is "evil" or "suboptimal" indicates that there is no actual design. That is not my argument here. In fact, at least to a limited extent, I agree with Dembski that the presence of "suboptimal" or "evil" design does not in and of itself argue against the presence of a designer (it does not necessarily argue for one, either, of course). My point is a bit more basic: if the advocates of "Intelligent Design" are sincere in their statements that they are not committed to any particular "designer", what possible scientific reason could there be for refusing to make inferences about the "designer" from the "designed"?
Reading the conclusion of Dembski's article, the answer becomes all too clear:
One looks at some biological structure and remarks, "Gee, that sure looks evil." Did it start out evil? Was that its function when a good and all-powerful God created it? Objects invented for good purposes are regularly co-opted and used for evil purposes. Drugs that were meant to alleviate pain become sources of addiction. Knives that were meant to cut bread become implements for killing people. Political powers that were meant to maintain law and order become the means for enslaving citizens.
This is a fallen world. The good that God initially intended is no longer fully in evidence. Much has been perverted. Dysteleology, the perversion of design in nature, is a reality. It is evident all around us. But how do we explain it? The scientific naturalist explains dysteleology by claiming that the design in nature is only apparent, that it arose through mutation and natural selection (or some other natural mechanism), and that imperfection, cruelty, and waste are fully to be expected from such mechanisms. But such mechanisms cannot explain the complex, information-rich structures in nature that signal actual and not merely apparent design--that is, intelligent design.
The design in nature is actual. More often than we would like, that design has gotten perverted. But the perversion of design--dysteleology--is not explained by denying design, but by accepting it and meeting the problem of evil head on. The problem of evil is a theological problem. To force a resolution of the problem by reducing all design to apparent design is an evasion. It avoids both the scientific challenge posed by specified complexity, and it avoids the hard work of faith, whose job is to discern God's hand in creation despite the occlusions of evil.
Clearly, Dembski does have a firm commitment to a particular designer. He is so firmly committed, in fact, that he is refusing to consider the possibility that any other possible "designer" is involved, no matter what comments he might make in public about "space aliens". Unfortunately, he is so committed to his particular designer that he misses a massive, fundamental flaw in his claim that the "problem of evil" is a theological one.
The "problem of evil" is only a theological problem if you presume a priori the presence of a benevolent, all-powerful God. In fact, it is a theological problem because it appears to argue against the existence of such a benevolent deity. If we make no presumptions about the nature of the designer, then the presence of what Dembski calls "dysteleology" is not a "problem", nor is it evidence of a "perversion of design", nor of a "fallen world". Instead, it is simply one piece of evidence which could potentially help to identify the nature and motives of the designer. The only reason not to draw inferences is if you are attempting to insulate your own particular theological beliefs from the conclusions.
If we have no preconceived conclusions about who is responsible for the "intelligent designer", what would we conclude from our observations of nature? We observe, in nature, a great deal of activity that most of us find to be distasteful, repulsive, and cruel. If we conclude that living organisms are designed, and we know that some of these organisms reproduce by laying eggs within a living organism, so that their newly-hatched young can quite literally eat the helpless creature from the inside out, how can we infer that the designer of this system is a kind and benevolent one? That is the "problem of design" -- if you look at nature without faith that it is the product of an all-powerful and kind deity, it is difficult (perhaps impossible) to conclude that it is.
So, to (finally) answer your question, I think that their refusal to "speculate" or "draw inferences" about the nature of the designer is nothing more than trickery. It is a tactic that is clearly designed to insulate their Christian beliefs from the possible consequences of what they claim is a scientific investigation of design in nature. It makes a mockery out of both their claim to have no particular designer in mind and their claim that they are simply following the scientific evidence where it leads -- especially that second one.
> Their motives aside, is their intent then only to demonstrate
> intelligent design?
That depends, I suppose, on how you make the distinction between "motives" and "intent". In front of school boards, or in the media, you do tend to find the major proponents of "Intelligent Design" claiming essentially that their intent is only to demonstrate design (see, again, Hall, 2002). Dembski, for example, usually manages to leave out the stuff about "fallen world" and "perversion of design" when he is trying to get ID taught in the public schools. So do other major proponents of ID (see, for example, Chapman & Meyer, 2002), claiming instead that this is entirely a scientific debate.
All three of the authors I just cited are associated with the Discovery Institute (DI) and/or its Center for Science and Culture (CRSC). Chapman is the president of the DI, Meyer is the director of the CRSC, and Dembski is a "Senior Fellow". The currently available statement of the public purpose of the CRSC (see http://www.discovery.org/crsc/about.html) mirrors their statements to public audiences. Both an earlier version of their "about" page, (http://web.archive.org/web/19970514072337/www.discovery.org/crsc/aboutcrsc.html) and a widely circulated internal memo, known as the "Wedge Document" (CRSC, undated) provides a somewhat different view. (See Forrest, 2001, for a discussion of the authenticity of the document.)
From the Wedge Document:
"Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture seeks nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies." (An identical statement was a part of the 1997 version of their "About CRSC" page cited above.)
Is it their intent simply, as they claim, to follow the evidence where it leads (and if so, why stop short of looking at the intent of the designer), or is their "scientific" objection to evolution simply a tactic designed to aid their expressed intention of overthrowing "materialism"? Personally, I think that even a casual examination of what they have done and written seems to strongly favor the second. They say that they intend to overthrow materialism and replace it with something that is theistically based, and I see no reason to doubt them on that.
> And then would you say that they are correct or incorrect in
> their demonstration of that design being intelligent?
[snip]
I think that they are incorrect in saying that they have demonstrated that design is present. Currently, the entire "scientific" portion of their "theory" seems to rest on the work of two people -- Michael Behe (see Behe, 1996), and William Dembski (see Dembski, 2002). Numerous authors have pointed out major flaws in the work of both, in fora ranging from internet websites and discussion forums to popular and scholarly works. (for example, see Miller, 1999, for a detailed criticism of Behe's work.) This post has run long enough already, and a detailed explanation of intelligent design's flaws would take up too much more time and space to go into now. For more information on those topics, you can go to www.talkorigins.org, www.talkdesign.org, or www.antievolution.org.
--Mike Dunford
--
References:
Behe, M.J., 1996, Darwin's Black Box. New York, The Free Press.Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture, "The Wedge Strategy," [online] Accessed on 26 Nov 2002 at http://antievolution.org/features/wedge.html.
Chapman, B. & Meyer, S.C., 2002, Darwin Would Love This Debate. Seattle Times, 10 June 2002. Accessed online 4 Dec 2002 at http://www.discovery.org/viewDB/index.php3?program=CRSC&command=view& id=1171.
Dembski, W.A., 2000, Intelligent Design is not Optimal Design [online]. Accessed 4 Dec 2002 at http://www.designinference.com/documents/2000.02.ayala_response.htm.
Dembski, W.A., 2002, No Free Lunch -- Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased Without Intelligence. Lanharn, Rowman & Littlefield.
Forrest, B., 2001, The Wedge at Work -- How Intelligent Design Creationism Is Wedging Its Way into the Cultural and Academic Mainstream, in Pennock, R.T (ed), Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics. Cambridge, MIT Press, p. 5-53.
Hall, Carl T., 2002, Nature's diversity beyond evolution -- Debate over intelligent design. San Francisco Chronicle, 2002 Mar 17, Page A-1.
Miller, K.R., 1999, Finding Darwin's God -- A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution. New York, Harper Collins.
--
Do you know anyone who would wager a substantial sum, even on favorable odds, on the proposition that Homo sapiens will last longer than Brontosaurus? --Steven Jay Gould